


Requested Prompts

by pirategirljack



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Fluff, prompted
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-05 12:11:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4179390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirategirljack/pseuds/pirategirljack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of random fluffy things from prompts people send me or that I find myself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stranded

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SinEater_Danyi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinEater_Danyi/gifts).



> First one:  
> my date just made a scene in public and got arrested and now i’m stranded in a city without a ride home  
> +  
> sharing a cab together
> 
> It just seemed like these two prompts could go together.

Cassie closed the folder and put it back in her bag, and her dessert had just arrived when someone stomped past the window next to her table and caught her attention. A couple was outside on the sidewalk, and the windowglass was thick enough that she couldn’t hear words, but the wild gestures and violent stomping made it clear that they were fighting. The woman had wild dark hair and sharp eyes, and she laughed at strange unpredictable times. The man had wide shoulders, longish hair, and a nice scruff over his jaw, and he looked like he was trying to control the situation--but was getting nowhere. 

Cassie ate her chocolate cheesecake in really small bites, partially to savor it, but mostly to give herself an excuse to stay at the table and watch events unfold.

The man said something, his eyebrows low over his nose, and pointed at a car. The woman looked at the car, looked back at him, laughed, and suddenly there was something sharp in her hand. Cassie almost choked on her cheesecake--it looked like the woman was going to stab the man, and that was not at all the show she’d wanted to see. She just wanted something other than viral pathogen analyses to look at for a while before she had to go home and look at some more.

But instead, the woman spun around and in the same motion stabbed the front wheel of the car five or six times. The man threw his hands up and clutched at his head like he might punch something if he didn’t hold onto it instead, and yelled something loud enough that she could almost hear him through the soundproofed glass. The woman took offense to that, and stabbed the back wheel, too. Then she produced one of those retractable billy-clubs from her purse, snapped it out, and gleefully smashed both of the side windows. 

The car wasn’t super nice or anything, but the parking there was valet, so he’d paid to have it parked so close. The valet had his phone to his ear as the man scrubbed at his face in utter disbelief. Cassie felt bad for him; he looked more mortified than angry now, and in retrospect, she thought maybe he hadn’t really looked angry at all--just upset and trying to get out of the public eye. 

He turned his back on the wreckage for a minute and in that time, he caught Cassie’s eye and the woman called something mocking at him, judging by her expression, and smashed another window. Cassie hadn’t wanted to make eye contact--how embarrassing public drama is--but now that she had, she smiled a little, trying to convey empathy through the glass. The side of his mouth wobbled a little, almost the start of a smile, and she read the words “sorry” and “my sister” on his lips.

Nice lips.

She looked back at her cheesecake.

Then there was a flash of red-blue, and a siren sound close enough and loud enough to make it through the glass a little, and Cassie looked up again in time to see the woman getting her hands cuffed while still yelling and laughing and snarling in turns, and the man talking to a cop with a notepad. He made a gesture over his shoulder at Cassie, and she knew what it meant--she’d seen what happened. She could corroborate.

Cassie hated talking to cops. She’d had to when her dad got out of hand after her mom died, and it always seemed like a flashback when she had to; generally, she avoided situations where cops might be needed, but when she was in the city, there was always that chance. She ate the last bite of her cheesecake, left enough cash on the table to pay the bill, and went outside before one of the cops came in and made this more of an issue than it already was.

She took her place right next to the man, and he offered something more like a smile. “Thanks. Sorry. Jennifer’s not well--I thought she was better than she was. Sorry.”

She smiled back, wary, but he was so sincere. “It’s okay. This is more excitement than I’ve had in ages.”

The cop took the man’s statement, then hers. His name was Cole, and he lived not far from her, outside the city. His car was useless. The cop offered to call him a cab, and he accepted.

“Cassie,” he said. “Can I call you Cassie? Or should I call you Dr Railly?”

“Cassie’s fine.”

“Look, Cas, you look like a respectable lady, and I’m sorry my family ruined your dinner. Let me pay you back for helping us out. Your place is on the way to mine; we’ll drop you off. I’ll pay.”

“That’s not necessary,” she said, but the cab pulled up right then and she didn’t see another one anywhere within view. It was late; she hadn’t seen another one in ages.

“Please. Come on, let me do this. I promise to be a perfect gentleman. I’ll sit all the way over against the door, and if you feel uncomfortable, I’ll get out and give the cab to you.”

Cassie didn’t feel any creepy vibes off the guy, but she also knew exactly what could happen to women who were too trusting. On the other hand, it was late, and getting later, and the cab pulled up before she could beg off. The driver was one she knew, who did most of her driving back and forth from this part of town, and he smiled and greeted her by name. She suddenly felt a lot better about the offer. Anthony wouldn’t let anything happen to her, and her stop was before Cole’s anyway. 

“Going home, Dr Railly?” Anthony asked.

She smiled and confirmed, and she and Cole got in, Cole telling the guy where he lived, too.

It wasn’t a long drive, but it was long enough that the silence between them started to feel weird. Cole kept biting his lip and looking forlornly out the window, his fingers squeezing and drumming on his knees. She caught a few of his glances; he looked like he wanted to say something, but he also looked painfully uncomfortable, he he never did manage to get any words out.

Cassie decided to take one for the team.

“So. Your sister.”

“Half sister. Same mom, different dads. I’m sorry, she’s--”

“Not well, you said.”

“Yeah. She hasn’t been right for years, if she ever was. Her meds must be out of whack again. It was the one month anniversary of her being--well, being out of the hospital. Her dad paid for the best doctors; it seemed like it was working.” He shrugged, and looked away again.

“I’m sorry,” Cassie said. “I should have started with the weather or something. Nice night we’re having. Perfect temperature.”

He smiled for real then, and even laughed a little. It changed his face, made him look younger, sweeter. Something warm woke up in her chest, just a little. “Yeah, practically perfect.”

After that, things were easier. She told him about her job at the CDC, which seemed to weird him out even as it fascinated him; she’d had enough people turned off by it that she was just glad he was still willing to share space with someone who handled potential plagues as her job. He told her about how he’d inherited his dad’s garage and was just classing it up to customize hotrods and expensive hobby cars with his best friend Ramse. He told her, too, how he lived out in the woods, practically off the grid and how great it was after growing up in less than ideal places. She told him about growing up unhappy, too, and how she worked her way out of it with med school.

“You know,” he said, as they neared the end of her street, “when I first saw you, I thought we couldn’t be more different, but now I think we’re probably more alike than we think. Can I see you again?”

Cassie’s heart fluttered. And this time, it wasn’t with wary apprehension. “I’d like that.” She handed him her card. 

Cole raised his eyebrows in a mock-impressed expression. “Fancy.” And then he scribbled his phone number on the back of a receipt from his pocket. 

“Good luck with your sister. And your car.”

“Ah, that’s no problem. I’ll have Ramse tow it back to the shop and we’ll fix it up. I bought it to pretty up, anyway, this is just moving up the timeline some. You should have seen the trouble when Jen totaled my first car before the shop was mine.”

Cassie smiled, and held out her hand. Cole smiled back and took it like it was something precious. He kissed her knuckles. “I’m glad I met you,” he said.

“Me too,” she said.


	2. Looking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cole gets caught staring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A prompt fic for Ohgress from a list on Tumblr! This one: “I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”

Cole found himself staring at Cassie’s behind. Again. And worse, he found himself rattling off an internal monologue on how he could explain or describe such a perfect ass to Ramse when he got home. The weather was warm and there wasn’t anything requiring fancy dress or work clothes--and, if he’s honest, the times he’d seen her in dresses were probably at least as mind-boggling as these shorts were…

Cassie turned around with a handful of papers in one hand and a pen in the other. She was chewing on the end and wearing her glasses, and her eyebrows made a cute little crease in the middle as she frowned down at the pages--

Jesus Christ, he needed to give it a rest.

Cole turned a little so that his whole field of vision was taken up by the pictures spread over the table, and pretended that the warmth crawling up his cheeks was from the sunlight coming through the kitchen windows. When did it get so warm in here again? He thought about taking his coat off, lessening his layers like she already had, but all the layers made him feel safer; if he was just wearing jeans and a shirt, he’d be practically exposed--

Cassie had said something and he hadn’t heard it. She was waiting for an answer and he didn’t have one.

“Uh,” he said, “what?”

“I said,” and she put a little extra emphasis on the second word, raising an eyebrow and leaning forward on her hands on the table, “I need a break, and you look like you could use one, too. Are you hungry?”

Finally a question he always had an answer to. He lifted his eyebrows in response to hers and she smiled, and he swallowed and looked away again, because her smile was as bright as the sun and he could see right down her shirt. “Silly question. I’ll order something.”

Cole rearranged all the papers and pictures and folders while she did, half to organize his thoughts, and half to keep his hands and eyes occupied, because what he really wanted to do was rearrange her clothes, and that seemed wildly inappropriate. She was so far out of his league that he didn’t have a chance, and I really needed to get himself under control before something weird happened and he messed it all up. They had a good thing here, a rapport, and he wasn’t lying when he’d said he needed her help--and that truth had gotten even more truthful as they followed their leads and he realized just how little he knew about this world.

“You’ve shuffled and lined up those folders four times,” Cassie said, and he found her leaning against the doorframe between the little kitchen and the little office she’d made in the back of the bookstore. Watching him. His heart jiggled a little in his chest.

“Yeah. Just thinking, I guess.”

“About what?”

“The mission?” Even to himself, that sounded like a lame excuse.

Her eyebrow was up again, and that little half-smile was back at the edge of her mouth. She was gonna kill him with that face. “The mission,” she said, and her tone was both dry and challenging.

“I was,” he said, and this time he sounded petulant to himself, like a child. She smiled a little wider, her eyes all sparkly.

“Just the mission?” she said, pushing up off the wall and coming toward him. He almost bolted like a rabbit, but managed to hold his ground. “Are you sure? Because I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”

She was super close, now, her hands folded behind her back, a teasing smile on her lips and lighting up her eyes. He glanced down at her chest and immediately knew it was a trap--he’d given himself away big time.

But he was saved by the delivery knock on the back door. Cassie laughed and turned to answer it. “You are way too easy to wind up, Cole,” she said over her shoulder. “You should see your face.”

“That’s not funny,” he said back, and went to get plates and silverware, “and it’s not nice. You’re supposed to be the nice one.”

“Supposed schmaposed…” she said, and opened the door.

Cole was blushing again, but he was also way more pleased than he needed to be--she couldn’t have made that joke if she hadn’t noticed, and, on some level, been pleased herself. And that meant maybe she wasn’t as far out of his league as he thought she was.


	3. Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cole wants to help Cassie find herself after she comes back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Ohgress, from Tumblr! “Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?”

They were together again, and Cole felt like he’d regained whatever lost limb he’d been missing while he was gone, but the future had changed Cassie. He knew it would--and he knew all the hundreds of ways it could, in stupidly intimate detail--but that didn’t mean that he didn’t want his optimistic old Cassie back. It didn’t mean he didn’t want to help her find that part of her that she seemed to think was gone, killed by the trauma.

The future sucked. He didn’t miss it at all.

But his future was here, now, and he had to make the best of it--with Cassie, whatever Cassie he had. A Cassie he would never give up on.

They were in another hotel room. He missed her bookstore that he’d exploded and still felt bad about, but Ramse was helping him do something about that. Ramse and his fat wallet were off doing something about that right now, and he’d texted Cole last night to tell him it was ready. He hadn’t come back yet, and so they were alone. Cole woke up and found that she was already awake, peeking out the window with a gun in her hand, her arms all long hard muscles and a few new scars. Scars that matched his.

The adrenaline shot through him and got him up at once. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Cas, what do you see?”

She softened a little, and turned away from the curtains. “Nothing, really. I thought there was something and it was just someone else in the hotel making a lot of noise. I…” She looked away, slowly put the gun down on the table by the window. “I thought the yelling was for us.”

Cole went to her and took her hands in his, running his thumbs over her knuckles until her fingers relaxed. “We’re safe here.”

“Are we?”

“As safe as we ever were. More, really, since Ramse can get us nicer hotel rooms with better security. Come on, lets get some breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“All your bones showing says different. I know you weren’t eating any feasts where you were, either, so don’t even try to lie to me. Come on. I know just the place.”

They got in the car and Cole directed her which way to go on the highway, which turns to take through the city. She caught on pretty quickly.

“I know this neighborhood.”

“You should.”

“But--but why?”

“You’ll see. Hungry now?”

“Starving--and confused.”

She parked the car around the back of her grandfather’s shop. The front was boarded up, more now than ever, since he’d blown those windows out when shit went down a while back, and it looked like an abandoned building. But if Ramse had come through, inside should be a different matter all together.

Cole had the keys; he knew before the door was all the way open that Ramse had done it. It smelled like fresh paint and new wood and bacon and eggs and hashbrowns. He swung the door open and held his hand out like people did on TV when they were showing off some big reveal. The inside was lit with what looked like a hundred candles to combat the new dimness from the boarded up windows, and Ramse had gone the extra mile and put a vase of flowers on the table, too, expensive looking ones.

“Cole…” Cassie said. And for the first time since he’d seen her pop back into the world, the edges of her beautiful lips turned up a little--and then a little more. 

A tight knot of worry unraveled a little in his chest, and he caught her waist in his hands when she turned to him. His Cassie was still in there, trying to come back. “Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?”

“I might knock you into one if you keep making jokes and keeping secrets like that.” But there was not even a little threat in her voice, and the smile widened, and he couldn’t help but smile back.

“I believe you could.”

“Because I’m tougher than you?”

He snuggled into her neck and her jaw and kissed her just once. “Because you always were.”

“I’ve been back for days now,” she said, her lips still smiling only an inch from his, “but now I feel like I’m home.”

Cole smiled wider than he could remember ever doing before. “If this is an alternate universe, it’s one I’m keeping. Way better than the one where Ramse was Scav King.”  
“And I was dead. Way better than that, definitely. I much prefer being alive.”

“And this is the first step to keeping you that way.”

Cassie’s smile got watery as her eyes did, and she hugged him so fiercely. And then her stomach made it very clear that it wouldn’t be ignored anymore, and she laughed and wiped her eyes and they ate every scrap of the breakfast Ramse had left them.


End file.
